For the ruffle edge you finish the shawl then get out your crochet hook and make chain loops in every row and every stitch across. Lots and lots of chains. It is the most time consuming part of the project but its worth it. For those of you not sure about crocheting, chains are the simplest of them all so easy to do.

I love this. This would be perfect for checking cows at 3 in the morning when one is not even awake enough to button a shirt let alone find a jacket with a hood to prevent the wind from freezing one's ears off.

I love SCA and whatnot but husband doesn't so now I can combine practicality with my love of anything old and stay warm in the process.

I have had this particular object done for a while now but have been monstrously lazy so haven't posted it here. I am terribly proud of it. The pattern is from the Spring/Summer 05 Edition of Family Circle's Easy Knitting Mag. Its quite simple and works up nicely. I made one error in it, that can't be seen in the picture. Then again, its a crappy pic so not much can be seen. Somehow I did a yarnover and it added a space. I contemplated frogging it back and fixing it, but decided to just let it stay, its in the back, my hair covers it and I had already completely frogged the project once so wasn't keen on doing so again, even if it was only two rows. I am justifying my choice of not frogging with the idea that the mistake/hole makes the whole object an original.

I cannot say I am super fond of the color. I got it from Herschner's when they had a sale so the colors were kinda limited and as I was ordering it online it was hard to tell if I would like the color or not. Usually I have good luck, this time I wasn't quite as fond but it still is a nice color that goes with many of my clothes. Of course, I am so proud of it that I wear it with almost everything no matter if it goes or not. So I guess color really doesn't matter.

I have wanted to learn to knit for a while now. I have been crocheting for 15 years now but never had taken the plunge into the world of two sticks. Finally, when at my LYS one day getting parts for a necklace I was making I saw one of those "Learn to Knit" kits that came with cheapo plastic needles and the various odds and ends one would need to start knitting. Major impulse buy.I forced myself to not open the package and dig in till I did some boring housework but finally I snagged up a skien of blaze orange acrylic yarn I had picked up from some yard sale years previous and began the process of learning out of a book. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to learn even tho I am left handed and had learned crocheting backwards. That horrid orange yarn became a dingy gray with all the frogging and knitting I did with it but in the end between the out of date book I had with dorky projects and the various internet sites I visited I managed to learn pretty quicky. Now I can't understand why I waited so long to learn how to knit

Lets say you are making a hat by casting on 30 stitches on dpns. You have 4 dpns, so you cast on 10 stitches on 3 different dpns. That leaves the fourth free. You now need take the three needles with stitches on them and form a triangle, make sure that the cast on is not twisted, the "spine" as i call it should be facing the same way when the triangle is formed. Now take the 4th needle and do your first stitch, lets say we are doing a row of knit stitches. So knit the first stitch.

What is the first stitch you ask? Well that would be the first caston, the one that your working yarn is not attatched to. When you formed the triangle you had the first cast on stitch and the last next to each other when you knit in that first cast on it joins the whole mess into a circle. I hope that makes sense, it does in my twisted little mind but then again I am crazy so mebbie I make no sense at all

Anyway, you now have it joined and you can work in the round. You will knit all the stitches on the first needle onto your working needle, that will leave the first needle free of stitches once you do those ten. That needle which is without stitches then becomes the working needle and you use it in place of the one that now has 10 knit stitches on it. You just keep doing that from one needle to the next. Think of it as a strange game of leapfrog.

If I make no sense, which might very well be the case, there are some good tutorials out there which can show it and make it easier to understand. If you still have troubles, message away and I will find a few of those tutes for ya.

Not too long after I first started knitting I decided I wanted to do a hat. I live out in the middle of nowhere and unless I ordered circs online I couldn't get anything other than 29 inch circulars. Now I needed to make this hat, I had my mind set on making a hate and by Gabriel I was going to do it. I knitted my hat on a set of dpns. I used a set of 4, meaning 3 always holding stitches and the working needle. I managed it and my 3 year old son has appropriated this rather simple ribbed hat. I had to frog it a bunch of times before I got the hang of it but you can indeed make a hat just on dpns. The drawback to doing your hat just on dpns is that there will be what I call 'weak links' in the hat where you switch from one needle to the next. You have to make sure to knit a lot tighter when you switch from one needle to the next. Its the main reason I frogged the hat so many times.

So, unless your head is UBERhuge, you shouldn't have any troubles doing the hat just on dpns. Its a whole lot easier when using circs tho.

I do not know if this will help you, as I am not sure what you have in mind exacty, but woolgathered has an excellent neckwarmer with fishtail lace, I love the lace because it isn't *too* holey but is still quite pretty and easy, I have taken that lace and began on a sweater using it for the hem and sleeve cuffs. I recommend it anyway.Here is the link to the info on it: https://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=23713.0

Also, I do believe there is the start of a knitalong that deals with a lacy shawl, you might want to take a look at that as well. She has a few patterns to various shawls with a lacey appearance that might suit you.Here is that link: https://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=28461.0